With the invention of the Internet stock trading no longer requires phone calls to your broker. No more waiting for the afternoon paper just to see how your stock performed on the previous day. These days you have real time access to your portfolio though the explosion of online trading sites.

Many people don’t realize that they can end up paying 5%-10% of their trade in commissions. The full service brokers allow online trading but have not reduced commissions that they charged when you used to have a personal broker. In the past 10 years, many online discount brokers have popped up all over the place. These discount brokers offer commissions as low as $2 per trade for market and limit orders. If you make many trades that commission will start to add up so it is key to keep that number low so your investment gains are realized.

Discount brokers offer the full set of services as do regular brokers like stock and option trading, mutual funds, fixed income and credit card and check writing. Discount brokers can afford to do all of this at a low commission rate since they have less infrastructure due to the fact that all clients access the trading platform via the Internet.

Most discount brokers also offer pomotions to get you to open an account with them. These promos are usually a cash bonus or a quantity of free trades that you can use to get your account moving. Currently there is an OptionsXpress promo where you can get $100 when opening a new account. There is always a Tradeking promo available as well.

With low commissions and account opening bonuses it is easy to see why discount brokers have become so popular. If you are still trading with an expensive broker you should consider moving your investments to a place where you can save money while having real time access to your portfolio.